Monument record WKB 051 - Medieval remains, Giffords Hall

May 2018: Within the moated enclosure, in the area of the car park to the north of the house and in a gravelled area to the east, archaeological evaluation revealed medieval remains beneath post-medieval and modern made-ground, at a depth of between 1m and .5m below ground level. The nature of the remains, which large date to the mid-12th to 14th centuries, is uncertain, but they include as possible ditch or pit, a buries soil layer and two thick deposits if soil that may be associated with earth-moving activity during this period.

It was demonstrated that the northern arm of the moat, which was backfilled in the early 1900s, had largely been cleaned out prior to it being backfilled with dumps of clay, soil and brick rubble. The north side of the moat was intact, excavation revealing its outer banks overlying vestiges of the former subsoil and topsoil horizons, but the south side had been extensively truncated by modern groundworks. The latter may have been associated with the demolition and post demolition groundworks of a brick building that once occupied the east end of the car park (S1).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2018. (S2)